Sony Ericsson Xperia X8

Available
now 16th June 2010

Aimed at the sub-€200 smartphone market, the Sony Ericsson
Xperia X8 is a cheaper and simpler alternative to the existing
high-end Xperia
X10.

This 104 gram Android device sports a 3" 320 x 480 pixel
touchscreen display, it comes with GPS, WiFi and 3.5G support, plus
an FM radio and a microSD slot (with a 2GB card included in the
standard sales package). There is a 3.2 megapixel camera on the
back which is capable of video recording. Inside is a competitive
600MHz processor with 128MB of RAM which should cope with almost
anything you throw at it, although it's not as fast as the processors
found in top-of-the-line Android handsets. There's a decently large
battery too, powering the X8 for up to 5 hours 40 minutes talktime
on 3G.

Early
adopters of the X8 will have to make do with Android 1.6 as an operating
system, but this will be upgradable very soon to Android 2.1. Later
shipments will have Android 2.1 preinstalled.. if this kind of thing
is important to you then check before ordering.

The software is highly expandable, as this is an Android handset
and the Android Market is stuffed full of a very wide range of applications.
In addition, Sony Ericsson have bundled the Xperia X8 with a trial
version of their Wisepilot navigation system, although many users
will prefer to use the new turn-by-turn navigation built into Google
Maps.

Our experience with the bigger Xperia X10 is that it is a very
nice Android device, but it falls down a lot on call quality. Hopefully,
Sony Ericsson's second attempt at an Android phone will sort out
some of those annoyances.

This is a nice looking device which is a lot more pocket-friendly
than the X10, the price tag looks good too. Sony Ericsson say that
the Xperia X8 should be available from Q3 onwards in White, Dark
Blue/White, Aqua Blue/White, Pink/White and Silver/White colour
combinations.